


Turn

by Ever-so-reylo (Ever_So_Reylo)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gray Reylo, I love this ship, Oral Sex, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Sex, Smut, Some Fluff, You Will Turn(TM), rey tries to resist him but she's grossly in love too, snoke lied about the bond, they bang so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-23 06:50:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13184640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ever_So_Reylo/pseuds/Ever-so-reylo
Summary: I would kill for you, he thinks at her, inside her, and this is the result of what they just did, the culmination of all of their history together.I would destroy the entire galaxy for this.OR:As it turns out, both their visions were correct.





	1. Chapter 1

She reasons that the bond is bound to disappear.

If Snoke is the one who initiated it, Snoke’s death can do nothing but erase it—or, at the very least, deliver a semi-fatal blow and begin a job that will undoubtedly be completed by distance and lack of physical contact. What will happen precisely she has no grounds to predict, but Rey can clearly picture it—a gradual but rapid weakening of any link remaining between the two of them as she crosses the atmosphere of Crait and set a course for Yavin, the channel of Force connecting them stretching thinner and thinner and then, at the right moment, snapping broken in two halves destined to never meet again. With a perfect, clean cut, the bond is simply destined not to be anymore.

Which is why, as the doors of the Falcon are about to close, she allows herself to hesitate.

_But not to me._

To linger, for a moment.

_Join me._

To look her fill, and store greedily, and map with her eyes what her fingers could not, and maybe—

_Please._

It is, of course, a stupid idea.

 

…

 

That first night, Leia comes to find Rey while she’s applying bacta patches to the worst of her injuries, looking twenty years older than the last time Rey saw her. She leans heavily on her cane as she sits down, the effort making her a little short of breath. Finn and Poe mentioned that she was involved in a decompression accident during one of battles, and her loss of consciousness, and something about some of the crew… mutinying?

Rey can’t leave those two alone for a minute, clearly.

“I cannot sense Luke,” she tells Rey, and there’s a question in there.

Just how force-sensitive Leia is compared to her son or her brother, Rey does not know. That she didn’t train as a Jedi herself appears to be more of a matter of personal choices than aptitude. Nevertheless, Rey closes her eyes against the viewport and the blur of the stars sprawling in front of her, takes a deep breath, and reaches, reaches, reaches even further, the sickly sweet smell of bacta becoming increasingly distant.

“Neither can I,” she says, when she is stretched to her limits.

She doesn’t open her eyes when she feels the weight of Leia’s hand on her shoulder, or when she hears her stand to leave, the rhythmic sound of her cane getting fainter with each step. She just sits, finding traces of the force that was Luke now scattered, dancing and rippling all around her, and it’s not— _if this is how the end is_ , Rey thinks, _maybe it’s not to be feared_.

She first notices it when pulls back inside herself, gliding smooth and undisturbed like water draining inside a well. Right before she’s folded into herself again, it’s as if there is—something—

There.

 _There_ , in the back of her mind. Blocking her way, something her Force _catches_ on and wraps itself around, something that did not snap apart as the parsecs increased, something tethering her to—

Her eyes spring open.

 

…

 

It swells within her, daily.

It coalesces into something rich and warm that feeds from two separate sources of Force.

And yet.

There are no visions, nor attempts at communication.

Whatever… _that_ is, it just _is_ , quiet and almost too easy to overlook, so undisturbed that at times Rey wonders if Ben is even aware of it.

“Kylo Ren, Rey. His name is Kylo Ren,” Leia reminds Rey whenever she mentions him for one reason or another, her tone gentle but firm. “He is no Ben. Not the Ben we…”

Her voice breaks, and Leia might very well be the strongest woman Rey has ever met, but the enormity of all that she has lost in the last few weeks is nothing but staggering.

 

…

 

She remembers something Luke had said about Force Bonds and the possibility to block them—no more than a few words mumbled reluctantly before turning into his hut that are, depressingly, all that is left of the Jedi knowledge on the matter. She tries to figure out the rest on her own.

She is no adept, and both the purpose and the art of meditation are of little interest to her, but she does what she can—she _tries_ —and after a few days the heavy, tickling sensation deep in her mind that is Ben’s— _Kylo Ren's_ —presence becomes subdued.

And then completely mute.

It doesn’t hurt.

Not quite.

However, there’s a soreness in her mind, a ache that speaks of emptiness, as if Ben— _Kylo. Kylo Ren_ — had made room for himself and then left behind a hollow space inside Rey’s head.

It doesn’t hurt but it’s _there_ , and massaging her temples might not make it better, but at least it reminds her that her head is still attached to her shoulders and not exploding somewhere in the galaxy and that—

“A headache? Again?”

“No. Yes. No, it’s just—a little…” She waves her hand vaguely, and Rose cocks her head with concern.

“We do have painkillers. A whole lot in fact, we’re not even rationing them. I can bring you one, if you like.” She grins, and it’s blinding. Ray has never had a friend like Rose. Never had a friend, almost, except for Finn and Chewie… and they’re both way too grumpy to smile at her like this.

“I—I’m fine.”

“What about some caf? Caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, which does miracles for migraines.”

“No. Thank you, but no. I’m fine.”

She smiles reassuringly, and goes back to fixing the motherboard of the co-pilot console—and to building one more layer around the shields that she has erected in her mind.

She tells herself that it might not ideal, or effortless, but at least it keeps her out of trouble, and it works.

Until it doesn’t.

 

…

 

The first time it happens she is walking alongside Finn, who keeps insisting that “No, there is no way we can just jump in a ship and go to Kashyyyk—”

“But we wouldn’t even uncloak until we’re in their atmosphere!”

“—and ask them to give us fuel for, like, half the credits because we don’t have enough!”

“We have Chewie, it must count for _something—_ ”

“No. It’s the riskiest thing I’ve ever heard, and we can’t just—”

The pain is sudden, and sharp, and so unexpected that for a moment she isn’t able to localize it. She gasps and collapse to her knees, clutching her left arm. It takes a moment for the fact that Finn has been talking to her to penetrate the haze of her discomfort.

“Rey! Rey, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she gasps. “Yeah.”

The pain subsides rapidly, becoming increasingly more bearable until there is only a dull ache in her upper arm.

“What was _that_?”

Breathing is getting marginally easier. “I—I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You just dropped like a sack of potatoes.”

“I don’t—Maybe a cramp?” It’s possible. Cramps do happen to her, sometimes.

Of course, that is precisely why she knows how a cramp feels, and that this thing felt _nothing_ like a cramp. It felt more like…

A lightsaber wound.

Finn frowns. “A cramp in your arm?”

She shrugs. “Yeah.”

“In your arm? You just had a cramp in your… upper arm?”

She frowns back at him. “As far as I know you can get a cramp pretty much anywhere you have a muscle, Finn.”

Finn rolls his eyes so hard that she is almost sure they’ll get stuck inside his skull.

“Listen, Rey, I can’t believe that I have to ask _you_ of all people this question, but…” A weight settles in her chest while she waits for him to continue, her fists clenching in anticipation of— “Are you… eating enough? We’re not strapped for food rations, not at all, and there is no need to be noble or whatever. You need to get the proper nutrients in you, and—”

She exhales. “Yes—Yes, I’m eating plenty. Of course I’m eating.”

He nods before standing, clearly unconvinced. “Okay. Okay, then.”

Rey takes a moment to check her shields—solid. Slick and smooth and without cracks—and then joins him.

 

…

 

The second time, she is walking in a desert alley in Coruscant to meet with a local informant when she spots six Stormtrooper walking in formation towards her.

 _Don’t panic,_ she tells herself, nauseated, he hand immediately dropping the her side and feeling for the lightsaber she hid within the folds of her tunic. _They don’t know who you are, they are not her for you, they cannot—_

When she blinks, they’re not there anymore.

 

…

 

The third time—it’s dreams.

She sees things she doesn’t remember, things she cannot know.

Fragments of images—Leia is young and annoyed because of a missed curfew; the air is hot and humid, and Luke is teaching someone how to use the force to lift a particularly large tree branch from a cart; she is running after an animal she has never seen before, and yet she knows to be a loth-cat; a beautiful, willowy woman is crouching down and tussling her hair.

_“You’ve grown so tall, Ben.”_

Rey wakes up bathed in sweat.

 

…

 

 _Do not think of him,_ she tells herself. _Do not dare think of him._

 

…

 

She builds layer upon layer of defenses—all useless.

She feels stabs of cold on desert planets, while everyone else around her is dripping sweat; some days her muscles ache as if she had put herself through the most brutal of combat trainings—and then, without rhyme or reason, the soreness ease off as if she had lowered herself in a pool of hot water.

She wakes up one night to find herself in the middle of what looks like a meeting—three unknown First Order generals sitting across from her, arguing over something that has to do with infrastructure and credits and manpower. The image fades before she’s done rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

She feels irritation, resolve, boredom, exhaustion, contempt, and—at times—even amusement that are not her own.

She keeps building.

 

…

 

They hole up in Coyerti, waiting for news from what’s left of their allies in Takodana—very little—and to agree on a place to rendezvous as early as possible—ideally, yesterday. They all keep busy—gathering intel, maintaining what little equipment and weaponry they have left, the odd practice drill.

Rey continues her combat training as well as she can manage—against Finn, and Rose, and whoever else is available and willing to risk singed hair so that the last Jedi doesn’t completely forget how to wield a saber. In the end, Poe reveals to be the most skilled in battle, and by far the most enthusiastic as the prospect of spending a few hours sweating with her.

That’s how they become friends—with anecdotes about the early days of the resistance, and strained muscles, and meals taken together as they watch the orbiting primary set and they try keep positive by focusing on how much worse it could have been.

“We could have just… died. On Crait. And then—you came and saved our asses. That’s why—I really admire you. And respect you. What you’ve done out there is outstanding,” he tells her one night, right when the temperature is starting to become too chilly to be outside.

It makes her blush a little, and for a moment she hides her expression in the work she’s doing—some boring cosmetic rewiring for a console on the Falcon.

“Thanks. I guess you’re not so bad, either, Commander Dameron. Or is that still Captain?”

Poe leans into her, and then forward, and then his eyes flutter closed and she doesn’t really understand why—

His lips touch hers, warm and soft, and for a heartbeat she’s too astonished to recoil or to push him away. Then he angles his head and parts his mouth, the scruff on his cheek scratching the skin around the corner her lips, a chuff of hot breath on her lips, and suddenly there is a hand on the side of her face, positioning her for a deeper kiss and—

No.

No no no _no no_.

She yanks herself away from the embrace.

“No!”

Poe blinks several times. “Rey?”

It’s her first—oh god, _her first kiss_ , and this it feels—wrong, the wrong moment, the wrong lips, the wrong voice, everything is wrong wrong _wrong_ and she wishes she could just go back and undo it and—

“I’m sorry, I—”

“No, _I_ ’m sorry. I just though you might—”

“It’s just—I don’t really—”

“Hey. Hey, it’s fine, Rey. It would have been nice, but I guess…” He shrugs and smiles, a little sheepish but ultimately unharmed. “You know, Finn and Rose are together all the time and kind of disgusting to be honest, and we’re with them a lot, too, so I guess it would have been nice and convenient if we…” He shrugs again, and for all his reckless, harebrained plans and selfless missions, he really is a boy, isn’t he? He hugs her and tussles her hair before standing to leave, and Rey is left with very little doubt that this will not interfere in their friendship, nor in their work relationship from now on.

That, and something throbbing inside her, as if someone had just picked the scab over a wound that was never really healed.

Impulsively, she lifts her carefully erected shields.

_Hey._

She is reaching out before has any idea what she’s doing. The very first time she willingly tries to initiate a contact of this type—of course, she has no idea how to go about it. The link remains silent, her mind feeling empty, that region in the back of her head that she has come to think of as _his_ _spot_ still unpleasantly hollow.

_Ben?_

She swallows and drops her head, forcing herself to go back to the wiring of the transistor. No matter. Why she’s trying to contact him, she doesn’t even know herself. It’s not as if they can chat about the weather or exchange anecdotes about their childhood. It’s for the—

_Rey._

 

…

 

_Can you see where I am?_

She can’t. See his surroundings, or see _him_. That… place, that _thing_ somewhere in her mind she tried to quarantine from herself is surging and heaving, energy washing over her, ticking her skin. It’s as if the force is…

Satisfied.

_I can see… some of your surroundings._

She feels a twinge of panic.

_You couldn’t. Before, I mean. You could only see me._

If she focuses, she can feel the outline of something solid but soft beneath her shoulder blades and the back of her thighs. He’s laying down, she realizes.

In bed

_We also couldn’t converse at will, before. By the way, to what do I owe the pleasure?_

She can hear the rustling of synthetic sheets as he moves his long legs. She orders herself not to think about it.

_I thought the bond… You killed Snoke. I thought that—that it would be the end of it._

Curiosity—that’s the impression she gets.

_Why did you think that?_

_He said he was the one to connect us. It would only make sense—_

_Unless Snoke lied._

She snorts. _A dark sider? Lying? Never._

He ignores her. _Unless it was the Force that connected us, and Snoke was just taking advantage of it. Keeping the bond in check._

Her hand clenches around a wrench. _What does that even mean?_

Something soft presses against her left cheek—it’s him, tucking his face against the pillow.

_It’s growing stronger. You were able to initiate contact. You can feel what I feel._

_But I can’t see you anymore._

_You don’t_ need to _see me to be able to make contact. But you probably could. Eventually we will likely be able to see our surroundings. Unless we actively block the bond._

Her stomach sinks.  _I’ve tried. To block you. It didn’t really work._

Some sort of mental eye roll vibrates through her. _How convenient for me, then, that years of formal Jedi training give me at least this advantage over you._ His tone sounds more dry than antagonistic. Self-deprecating, almost. Rey must be hearing things. _I told you that you needed a teacher._

_Are you jealous of my innate talent?_

Is it… a smile? _I would surely resent it less if you joined it with mine._

Something constricts in her throat, something she has to work around to swallow.

_My offer stands, Rey._

Something is throbbing inside her chest _. So does my answer._

He is clenching his jaw, now. _Very well._

The bond goes silent.

 

…

 

It’s because she cannot sleep.

Getting deals on weaponry that are not outright robbery is harder and harder, there are several factions of the Resistance they had been counting on that continue to remain silent even months after the battle of Crait, today she and Chewie almost had an argument about the risks she’s apparently taking, not to mention that Rey is not used to live in such close quarters with some many _people_ , and no matter that she laid down on her cot and closed her eyes two hours ago she keeps seeing the wiring of the gravity generator she worked on for hours and she cannot figure out why the kriff it won't work, which is not even the worst of her problems because Leia seems to be more and more worried about the—

“Breathe.”

She shoots up from the sheets.

“Ben?”

His eyes are glued to a projection coming from a holopad. He is sitting on a high-backed chair, his feet propped on a … desk? It all seems incongruously mundane, for the Supreme Leader of the First Order and the galaxy.

At least he’s wearing clothes.

“Did you know,” he says conversationally, without bothering to lift his gaze to hers, “that Snoke declared speaking my former name high treason?”

She is still trying to catch her breath from the scare he gave her. “How fortunate, then, that you disposed of him.”

A flicker of amusement. “Indeed.”

“And it still _is_ your name.”

He doesn’t answer, and changes the map he was projecting—the Feswe Corridor, Rey thinks—to something Rey cannot recognize. His skin is white in the light of the hologram, a stark contrast against black of his hair. Something inside her wants to stand and walk towards him, push that stray lock away of his forehead, confirm that his skin is really as warm as she remembers. She looks away before it becomes a compulsion, and her eyes catch on something peaking from beneath the sleeve of his shirt.

“What happened to your arm?”

He glances at the bandage wrapped around his bicep. “Practice injury.”

She lifts one eyebrow. “Really? Do you Knights of Ren usually kill each other, during practice?”

“Sometimes,” he tells her, disinterested. “Did you feel it happen? The injury?”

She hesitates. She needs to thread carefully, here. She does not know how much she can reveal and still protect herself and the Resistance. She knows nothing about Force bonds, and the one person who could illuminate her is precisely the person she should not be speaking with, and—

“You did, didn’t you?”

“Stay out of my head.”

“You are unsure of the workings of Force bonds. You are untrained. I will tell you what you want to know.”

 _Right_. “Can you read my thoughts?”

“No. Well, sometimes,” he amends. “It’s… messy.”

He marks something on the holopad and then flips to another map. Rey grabs the hem of her sheets and brings it to her chest, wrapping it around herself.

“The shields I built. Why were they not effective? Why didn’t they keep you out?”

The following pause, she has the sense, as much for himself as for her. He lays the holopad on the table, and sits back on his chair, still avoiding to look at her.

“Because I’m already inside.”

 

_…_

 

_The way you turn your foot. Before you pivot. It gives away the depth and direction of your swing._

Poe smiles, reassuringly. “Okay, Rey. Wanna go once more?”

_Mind you own business, please. I didn’t ask for advice._

“Okay.”

_I know. I offer it out of kindness._

_Aren’t you busy? Don’t you have a Galaxy to run, or something?_

_I delegate._

_I bet you do._

It’s been—a particularly stressful session, and it’s not exactly false, that Poe always seems to know exactly from which direction she’s going to attack. They’ve been training for hours and her joints are achy and she fell about a million times and her shirt is almost in tatters, not to mention her hair, which is currently falling in her eyes, and—

“Rey, you ready?”

She bends her knees slightly to position herself. “Yep.”

_I like it down._

_What?_

_Your hair._

_I—You—_ She will _not_ blush. And she will _not_ care. _Stop looking at me._

She sprints towards Poe.

 

_…_

  

She sees more and more of him. And his surroundings, too.

He has… friends—poor choice of word. Allies, maybe?—in other members of the Knights of Ren. There is a council of sorts, making decisions and discussing policies, with mundane things such as briefings and roundtables. They are not—Rey doesn’t know if she can trust the snippets of what she hears and sees, but the Order doesn’t seem to be hell bent on destruction. There is talk of dealing with crises and problems of planets whose names Rey remembers hearing, and resources that are deployed, and strategical plans that are discussed and modified. What she can grasp of Ben’s conversations and his surroundings increases daily—names of people, of ships, of places.

 _You are in the Kuat system,_ she tells him one night, elated. _Orbiting around Kuat’s moon._

He doesn’t appear to be surprised anymore, when she makes contact with him without warning. Then again, their conversations have become a regular occurrence—more regular that she’d be comfortable admitting to anyone.

_I am._

_I—I know where you are. You realize I know the location of the leader of the Supreme Leader, and can tell my general, and—_

_And?_

_We will—We could…_

The bond falls quiet.

 _The First Order’s whereabouts are not being kept particularly secret,_ he tells her, not unkind. Where this kindness he’s been displaying of late comes from, she has no idea. The number of friends and allies of hers he has murdered is staggering. She has no business thinking of him as anything but a monster. _And the Resistance doesn’t have the firepower, nor any other resources to attack us._

 _Right._ She sounds—feels—bitter.

There is a—pause. A tension. Between them. That drives her to be still, and makes her dread his words.

_The opposite, of course, is not true._

That night, she decides to leave the Resistance.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Even completely packed, her bag is no more than half full.

“It’s not forever,” she tells Leia as she busies herself with the fastenings—better than looking her in the eyes, for sure. “And I’m not leaving the Rebellion. I just need… a break.”

“A break?” Leia sounds incredulous. Rey cannot really blame her.

“For a little while.”

“You will be alone, out there.”

 _No, I won’t_ , something inside her quips back.

She stifles it.

“I’ve always been alone. Really, the past months has been more like an exception than the rule. You said I can take that old starhopper that can’t be fully restored for battle, right?”

“Rey, why are you doing this?” Leia sounds—tired. Depleted. She has been delegating more and more to Poe, which is not bad per se, but it’s also not entirely like her. Rey wonders if her departure might not make Leia’s situation even worse.

Then again, it’s not as if Rey has a choice.

“It’s complicated.”

“Well. I am a smart woman.”

Rey has to smile, however faintly.

“Ben—” she starts, only to catch herself the moment she sees Leia’s reaction to hearing the name. “I…” _The Force wants us together, I think._ she wants to say. _In fact, I know. And I can’t quite fight it, and when I will fail, I don’t want to bring the Resistance down with me._

She tells Leia none of it.

“It’s just, I need to be gone for a little while. And then I’ll be back to help with everything.”

Leia closes her eyes and presses her lips together. When she opens them, her expression is resigned.

“Let me give you a beacon.”

“No!” Rey takes a deep breath and tries to ignore the look in Leia’s eyes, half-suspicion and half-worry. “It’s better if I don’t know where you are. Believe me, If there’s need for it, I’ll find you.”

 

…

 

“You left the Rebellion.”

He doesn’t sound surprised. He doesn’t look it, either. He mainly looks sweaty, probably in the middle of some kind of physical training, judging from the way his arm is bent above his head to stretch his tricep, and from the weapons rack full of blades mounted to the wall a few meters behind him. It’s the only part of his surroundings that she can make out.

She punches the coordinates she just calculated in the navigation the console.

“I didn’t _leave_ them. I’m just…”

“Protecting them. Yeah, yeah.” He waves a hand dismissively. These days, his baseline seems to be mildly annoyed, rather than the furious black hole of anger she remembers him as. He’s less unstable, for sure. Rey has to wonder how much the recent deaths— Luke and Han and Snoke—have to do with it. Not to mention the radical downsizing of the Resistance, which is not exactly a formidable adversary at this stage.

_Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to._

It is entirely possible that Ben feels he has finally accomplished just that.

“It’s a small ship you’re on.”

She tenses. “Large enough for me. What can you see, anyway?”

He’s wiping the sweat off his face with a towel. A black towel, of course. It’s—diffucult. Not to stare. At the way the cloth is the same color as his hair, and the glistening of sweat on the round curve of his shoulder, at the way the muscles of his upper back flex beneath his skin as he wipes his brow.

“Some things. Your console. There a mug of caf on your right that you’re probably going to knock over if you don’t pay attention. It says world’s best pilot,” he adds with that dry amusement a few weeks ago she’d have thought he wasn’t capable of.

She rolls her eyes. “Stay out of my ship.”

“Mmmm.” A pest. That’s what he is, when he’s not too busy dictating and oppressing the entire galaxy. “It won’t be long.”

Damn the dark side, and their vague, cryptic statements.

“What, won’t be long?”

“It won’t be long before I can see your surroundings at will. Figure out where you are.”

She tenses. “It doesn’t matter. What will you do, then? It’s not as if I know where Leia is. I’m not going to be able to lead you to the Rebellion. Whatever you think you’re getting out of this, it will always be just me.”

He tosses the towel on a nearby bench and grabs his weapon with a firm grip, focusing on something beyond her, something she cannot quite get hold of.

“It will never be _just_ you.”

 

…

 

It’s not quite lonely, except that it is.

Except that it’s not.

It’s boring, that’s what it is.

On Jakku she would go for days without really speaking with anyone—with the unpleasant exception of Unkar and his henchmen, not that the tense bartering could ever qualify as conversation.

But that was _before_. Before Finn and Chewie and Rose and Leia. Before chores spent hearing long-winded tales about planets she’d never even imagined and anecdotes so different from her own experiences that they completely blew her mind. Before board games, and meals spent chatting more than eating. Also, before engaging repeatedly in an egregious misuse of the force to have these stupid, useless, oddly entertaining conversations with Ben about—

“Stop whining.”

Why _the kriff_ he can’t he keep out of mind, she has no idea.

“I’m not whining.”

“You absolutely are.”

She opens he mouth to deny it. “No. It’s—” This kind of dissimulation is useless with him, anyway. “I don’t know why I’m so bored.”

He lifts both eyebrows. “Maybe because you’re without purpose for the first time in your life? And alone?”

“Why, thanks. You’re _so_ insightful.” She wishes he were here. It would be nice to punch him in those guts of his. “No, it’s stupid. I never really enjoyed being with people that much. Still don’t.”

A silent pause, and for a moment she can’t see him, and half thinks he’s backed out of the bond. When she can spot him again he’s disposed of the documents he was reading and he’s wearing something different, sitting behind his desk. He’s getting scarily good at turning on and off their communications. Rey—not as much, for some reason.

“How’s the First Order?”

“Fine,” he tells her.

“Rebellion’s doing great, too, in case you’re interested.”

“Is it?” He doesn’t _sound_ interested. He look at her from across his desk. “Do you play cards?”

“Cards?”

“Cards,” he repeats, ever long-suffering.

Of course, she plays card. It’s not as if the Rebellion that many kinds of entertainment at its disposal. Rey would bet that Ben knows, too, since he probably grew up playing the exact same games she played until a few weeks ago.

“Yes,” she tells him, and edge of suspicion in her tone. “But I don’t see how—”

He deals her ten cards, which appear in her lap out of nowhere .

“What—How are you doing this?”

He picks up his own hand and studies it, making an unhappy face at what he sees—as if he hadn’t been the one to deal it.

“The bond is getting stronger,” he tells her, almost distractedly.

 

…

 

They talk every day. And every night.

The talk during his meetings and while she trains. They talk in the drowsy moments before he falls asleep, when his voice and his eyes become impossibly softer, and they talk as she takes her means— _You eat as if you were a three hundred pound Mon Calamari_ , he tells her, bemused. _Thank you, I take it as a compliment._

The talk about the games of cards and chess they have ongoing, and about the best way to clean and repair laser swords. They talk in their heads and they talk facing each other, and those hungry looks he’s been giving her, well. She is not positive what to do with it, nor with her much unwanted response.

She has never talked so much with anyone, not even Finn, not even Rose—who talks _a lot_ —and whatever line exists to set them apart as enemies gets blurrier by the day.

So that when she does it, it’s on impulse. She grabs his hand for one reason: because she wants another vision—she wants _know_ , how it is possible that this men who had the patience to explain her _twice_ in painstakingly laid out details how to evade the strictest types of First Order uncloaking scans can also be the one who would murder all her friends as well as his own mother if given the chance.

So she takes his hand.

And yet.

There are no visions, this time. No sense of being elsewhere, or witnessing something just beyond reach.

Just the warmth of his skin.

“Not quite what you were looking for, uh?” he tells her, in that mild way of his.

When she lifts her eyes, he’s staring at their joined hands. His is larger— _so much larger_ than hers. It reminds her of standing next to him in that turbolift, of having to tilt her head to look up at him. It reminds her of the way his fingers closed around her elbow to guide her to stand in front of Snoke.

It reminds her that she should forget all these things, that she should not even be talking to him.

“Did _you_ see anything?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

Probably, she also shouldn’t reach for him and start playing with his fingers using both of her hands.

Probably.

”Tell me where you are, Rey.“

“No. No, I’d be—what’s the point?”

He purses his lips. “I don’t know. Maybe we could talk in person, instead of…instead of whatever _this is_. Abuse of the force, for sure.”

It makes her chuckle, and she continue toying with his digits.

“I know you’re somewhere around the Corellian system,” he tells her, something husky in his tone.

She looks up surprised. “How do you know?”

“The light from the primary is pretty distinctive. And I can see a hint of the core constellations in the background. Not the best place in the galaxy, for camping.”

Can’t argue with that. “You’ve traveled a lot, haven’t you? In the past.”

“Yeah, well. You know who my parents were.”

Instinctively, she tries to pull her hands back. He immediately closes his fingers around hers, effectively capturing her.

Not that she puts up too much of a fight.

“One of your parents is still alive, you know.”

His doesn’t lift his eyes from their joined hands. “She might be, but she is not my mother.”

“How can you speak of her like this? She—”

The vision she had been looking comes suddenly. It’s not what she expected—not the future, but the past, Ben’s past—piloting his ship during one of the battles in the Crait system, flying to get a clear shot of the bridge of the Raddus, and then… then, letting himself feel Leia’s Force for the first time in _so long_ , locking on her, and hesitating before pulling the trigger, and then, then feeling—

“No—stop!” It’s Ben who tries who withdraw his hand now, and it’s she who holds him back using a combination of physical strength and force.

“ _I knew it_. I knew that there is still light in you.”

“You know nothing,” he spits out, finally wrenching his arm away from her.

“If you come back to us, to the Rebellion, we could—”

“I am the supreme leader of the First Order. Of the galaxy, considering all that is left of the Rebellion. Why would I—”

“Because there is _light_ inside you.”

The is anger edging his sigh. “Rey.”

“You will turn. To the Resistance.”

“No. Stop lying to yourself, Rey. I am no more likely to turn to the light than you are drawn to the dark side.”

She wants to ask him why, to insist, but they’re treading into dangerous territory. It’s in his voice, in the way she can feel his heart beat through their link, in the sudden coldness in his eyes.

“Ben…”

“There is only one thing that will make me turn.”

“Ben.”

“And you know what it is.”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“I said, quit lying to yourself, Rey.”

The Force bond grows tighter.

 

…

 

It happens without any real forewarning, when she is getting fuels and provisions on a moon of Kuat. Too close to where so many First Order ships have spotted, for sure, and it’s not as if Rey has any idea why she’s been edging close and closer to Coruscant, which is the de-facto capital of the First Order.

 _You’re on Kuat._ There is a trace of exultancy in the voice the echoes suddenly in her head. _In the Core._

She tries to push him out, and it worked not a year ago, when he was trying to get the map leading to Luke out of her head, and why she’s not able to do it anymore, she truly has no idea.

Except that she knows.

“Get out,” she says through gritted teeth, earning a funny look from one of the Kuati she is bartering with.

He does, but not before she hears it loud and clear. _I’m coming to get you._

 

…

 

He catches up with her three days later, at an old, semi-deserted starbase a few parsecs away from Kuat. For a moment she doesn’t notice him, lost in the logistic of landing her ship in the hangar and figuring out where to head for help with repairs, since the place seems to be pretty empty except for a couple of people more interested in staring at someone kicking a ball on their holopad than paying attention to her. There aren’t many ships, and the one she does take notice of is definitely not Ben’s command shuttle she’s well familiar with, or any ship other she’d expect from the current Supreme Leader, which would probably be black, and dramatic, and expensive looking. It’s just a small freighter, not unlike the Falcon—which Rey’s been missing so much—looking harmless and maybe even a little beaten up, and Rey thinks the she might decide to go check it out after dinner, if she has some spare time.

Then she sees _him_.

She is the first to draw her saber—actually, she’s the only one to do so, up until the very moment remaining unarmed would mean certain death for him. Only then Ben closes his eyes briefly, and clenches his jaw, and activates his own sword with some muttered curse, long lines that weren’t there the last time they met bracketing his mouth.

“Rey, what are you—”

When she swings in attack, he just lifts his sword to defends himself, and the irony is not lost on her, that the last of the peaceful Jedi should make the first move to strike the most powerful of the Knights of Ren.

The realization doesn’t stop her.

“Rey,” he tells her, traces of hard-won patience and annoyance in his voice. She ignores him and charges again.

“Rey, stop—”

Another swing, and since he doesn’t seem to have any intention of shifting to attack, all he can do as she advances into him is taking several steps back.

“Why—won’t—you—leave—me—alone—for—once—”

“Because you don’t— _stop this_ —want to be left alone any more that I do!”

When—how—why precisely she started crying, she doesn’t know. He probably does, though, and his frustration with the way she is attacking him—confused, messy, ultimately clumsy— shows in the dispassionate way he has of blocking each strike, and once even in the way he rolls his eyes at a particularly sloppy hit. And yet he lets himself be backed into the bulkhead of the hangar, and when he hits it he seems to lose hit patience, deactivating his weapon and using the force to block her arm and turn hers off, too. That he’s able to do it, unchallenged, speaks volumes of her current state of mind.

He draws her to himself, one arm holding her at shoulder height, and lowers his mouth to her ear.

“Stop this,” he pushes out.

“No!” She slams her fist on his chest, continues until he engulfs it in his palm.

“Rey, stop.”

“No.”

“I—”

“Rey. Stop this madness, and come home.”

She should laugh in face. She should push him away just enough that she can look him in the eyes and mock him for the idiocy of what he just said, but for some reason the tears are running faster down her face, and she can find very little humor in the situation.

“The First Order is not my home.” She says, and it does come out not as harsh as she wants it to be. But this, after all, the power he has over her. She _knows_ him and his nature. She has witnessed him murder in cold blood— _countless lives_ —, and yet.

Her heart has never felt so full.

“I’m not talking about the First Order.”

He lets one of his legs slides between hers, his hand dropping to her lower back and pulling her tighter against him. For reasons that don’t make sense—they are mortal _enemies,_ on opposite sides of one of the bloodiest wars of the century—he’s come to meet her without wearing his full armor. His uniform, black pants and tunic, do little to isolate the heat of his muscles.

Hi palm widens on her lower back and he _moves her_ —he maneuvers her so that she is rubbing herself over his tight. She feels a shiver of pleasure licking up her spine.

He checks are wet when she buries them in his chest.

“Just—” She closes her eyes tight, breathing in the dark smell of his skin, feeling exhausted. “Just take me away from here.”

He does.

 

…

 

Ben uses the force on the handful of people staring at them befuddled in the hangar— _you never saw us_ —and leads Rey to some kind of First Order outpost that makes Rey reflect bitterly on the fact that this dusty, barely in use starbase, just like anywhere else in the galaxy, is not quite _neutral_ anymore. The people they meet as they walk mostly ignore them, and the occasional second look they get is more likely to be due to his obviously First Order issue clothes than to any recognition of Ben as Kylo Ren.

“This means nothing,” she tells him as soon as a solid-looking set of doors has swished closed behind them. He is taking off his cape, and then his gloves, his eyes staring into hers with that sullen air of his. “I just—”

In less than a second she finds herself pushed against the closest vertical surface, his face buried in her throat and inhaling big gulps from her skin. Her hand lifts to his hair without her ordering it to, and suddenly he’s kissing her, a business of tongue and teeth, and she always thought he’d be aggressive and consuming, but never that he’d be so _thorough_.

It’s nothing like what Poe did—for one, she can’t _think_. For two, she is—wet, very wet, and it’s not exactly new for her, not with all the talking and staring and being around each other they’ve been doing for the past month or so, but never like _this_ , and never—

”Have you done this before?“

She considers asking him what _this_ is, but it wouldn’t be exactly honest of her. So she just shakes her head and watches him swallow visibly, close his eyes as if for a last-minute prayer.

“Have—have you?”

She doesn’t quite get an answer, because her clothes are coming off with sharp tugs, his impatient hands losing track of their goals to linger over the slopes of her breasts, her waist, her backside. The way he’s looking at her is _obscene_.

“Don’t. Please.”

It takes him several tentatives to finally look up from tracing her nipples, holding her entire ribcage within his hands. His eyes are glazed.

“Rey. What?”

“Don’t stare at me. I—I’m...”

He just shakes his head and goes onto his knees, still completely clothed—all that black—, parting her bare thighs with his large, hot palms, and surely he has not intention of—

His mouth is wet, and strong, and soft, and—oh, _oh_ , this is good, _he_ is good, he is talented at this, deftly skilled, whether because of experience or simply out of enthusiasm she does not— _cannot_ —know, but her knees buckle and she feels raw and unconstrained and there is something pulling, tensing inside her as she tries not stare at the way his mouth shapes around her, the way his thumb circles and dips and _presses_ , and why, _why_ are her hips lifting so high against it—

“Stop,” she begs him pressing her palm into his shoulders, because it’s a lot, it’s _too much_ , and when he complies and stands, wiping haphazardly at his mouth with his hand and going back to staring at her like _that_ , she feels that thing within her pull even tighter.

“This is… I’m sorry.”

“What—Rey, what are you apologizing for?”

“We shouldn’t… And I’m not sure what—”

He takes her hand and guides to the front of his pants, bending to kiss her again, and again, and again, crowding her flat against the wall.

“Please,” he gasps into her mouth, and it reminds her of another _please_ , of forbidding herself from saying _yes_ , of revisiting her choice while laying alone on a narrow cot night after night after for _months_.

This time she looks up at him nods, his breathing heavy as he undos the opening of his pants beneath her fingers, lift her up until he has arranged her to his liking, and then positions himself against her, and she should have known that Ben of all people would be so _incredibly_ large, both in her mind and in her body.

“Open,” he orders, as if it were something she could—

“What— _How_? I—”

His grunt as he sinks inside is low, a little wild, nothing short of a sound an animal could make, and she’d be afraid if she weren’t busy feeling so _full_ , bursting, parted, completely _split_ by—

His throat works, noiseless, and the she exhales as he bottoms out. There are muscles inside her she didn’t know about, and they’re burning and clenching and suddenly it hits her like a dam breaking that he’s with her, inside her, finally close enough, _finally_.

“It’s okay,” he tells her between kisses on her lips, her cheekbones, her throat. “It’s done. I’m…” He stops and swallows heavily, looking down between them at the spot where they’re bodies are together and then up, into her eyes. “Rey.” He looks shaken, and a little incredulous.

From somewhere, she feels a smile swell within her and curve her lips. “Hey.”

The Force flows like a stream water between them, driving them both mad with waves of pleasure.

“You know,” she tells him as he starts moving, first with an attempt at gentleness and then more forcefully as she loosens and his control slips, the blissful, delicious friction driving him mad. “I think the Force likes it, what we’re doing.” He hits a spot inside her that makes her—there, yes, _there—_ squirm and arch and maybe even whine a little. How wimpy of her. She is such a _girl_ , around this man. “I know _I_ do.”

He mutters something against her ear that sounds remarkably like ‘fuck’.

“It’s probably better if you don’t—” he groans agains the base of her throat, “—talk. Too much. It might make this last… longer.” It’s the most apologetic she’s ever heard him.

She presses a light, chaste kiss on his cheek, scant millimeters from his scar. _Her,_ scar. “Okay.” There is a heavy pulse deep in her pelvis, expanding from between her legs and making her shake, making her warm, making her— “Okay. I—”

When it happens, he holds deep inside her and pulls her into his chest with solid arms, and contains her mind and it tries to explode and scatter all over the place. The pleasure crests in a hint of pain and then drags along her nerves, lingering long after the spasming and clenching has subsided. When it’s over, or as over as it’ll ever get, she gives him a tired, happy smile.

“I’m going to finish inside you, okay?” There’s an edge in his words, a tremor in his hand as he pushes her hair away from her forehead.

She can only nod.

The last things she feels before his mind goes blank is her name, hummed deep within their souls.

 

…

 

They—apparently—can’t stay in the room forever, or on the starbase.

“I can’t leave my ship here. What someone steals it?”

“They won’t.”

She must have been developing a habit for idiocy in the past few weeks, because she decides to trust him.

But she tells him that at the very least she should pilot, for no reason that she’d like to take a look at these Order ships in case the Resistance ever gets a shot at these jerks again. Sounds like a useful skill to have.

He rolls his eyes and lets her.

There is no space set aside for a copilot, but the seat is roomy enough that she can be on his lap.

“You’re comfy for being all evil and everything.” She fidgets on his legs until she has found a decent position. “And for being so bony. Not much to eat on the dark side, is there?”

He snorts. “Look who’s talking.”

Still sore from…. From _before_ , she stretches, lifting her arms over her head and arching her back. Her hair—way too long, now, way too impractical for the types of manual work Leia and Poe insisted on sending her around to do—falls over her shoulders, remind her that she didn’t pull it up again after he—after _they_ …

It’s new. She never lets all of her hair down. It is not unpleasant, and given how he hasn’t been able to stop touching it, he doesn’t seem to mind it. Their minds are tethered, and his stirs inside her—she feels it flow in that place that she has come to think of as _his_ , that place that he fills perfectly when one of them is not being stubborn and shielding the bond. Hishands skim up her waist and come to rest on her ribcage, encasing it until he spans it completely. Then slide up, cupping her breasts.

He is hard against her backside, just as she is still wet from the remnants of what they did. It reminds her of the sweet way in which he tried to wipe her clean using a corner of his cape, his hands shaky as he picked up the clothes scattered on the floor and dressed her again with a surprising lack of clumsiness.

“You should disengage the inertial dampener first.”

“Damn backseat drivers,” she mumbles, and doesn’t see, only feels the way his lips curve against the side of her head.

“You really _do_ need a teacher.”

“Ha. Look who’s talking. I can think of at least five saber forms that I can do better than you.”

His heart skips a beat against her shoulder blade. “You’ll have to show me.”

 

…

 

“What did you see?” His voice is scratchy. He dozed a bit, she thinks, after the third time. She is not exactly sure, because she dozed, too, the lumpiness of the cot in the cramped quarters aboard his ship not enough to deter her, not next to the cozy warmth of his skin. Her brain feels a little tired, and addled. And peaceful.

“Mmm?”

“The Force vision. On Ahch-to. What did you see?”

She burrows her nose further in his throat and tucks herself tight against his side. Why he wants to talk about visions that will never come true when they could just lay here and check out of the real world, she has no idea, but she doesn’t like it. This moment— _this precious, precious moment_ —is not going to last, and Rey would rather spend it memorizing the curve of his stomach, or how his chest swells in a deep sigh when traces the groove that coasts his hipbone, or the way the gradients of his smell change as she drags her nose to different parts of his throat, or—

“Rey.” He prods her hip gently, and then his hands stays there, lingers over her skin as if reluctant to leave.

“I told you. In the turbolift.”

He presses his lips on the crown of her hair.

“Tell me again.”

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, since it didn’t—it _won’t_ —”

“Please.”

She is not able to tell him no, not anymore. It’s going to be problem, sooner or later.

“That you would turn. I saw that you would turn, and come with me, and—”

“I saw the opposite.”

“Yeah.” She bites the base of his throat, lightly. And then not so lightly. “Well.”

“It’s odd. That we would see opposite visions at the same time. Before either of us had the chance to act upon them and change the future. That’s not how visions work.”

Rey knows nothing of visions, so she remains silent. _I will not turn my back to the Rebellion_ , she thinks loudly enough that he has to hear her, her face incongruously nested under his chin, her nose buried in the slope of his throat— _heaven_. And yet, she cannot shake the impression that it’s not precisely what he’s implying—he doesn’t think that she’ll be the one to turn to the dark side. He is thinking about this, too, ransacking his own mind and studies and past experiences to understand better how this could be.

She lets him, pressing occasional kisses to his collarbone, running her fingers over his abdomen.

“I was happy, I think,” she tells him after while. Rey hasn’t grown up with happiness. It’s a foreign, odd feeling that she’s struggles to recognize. And yet. “In the vision, I was happy.”

He says nothing, but his chin grazes the top of her head as he nods.

 

…

 

He is hard against her lower back—it’s the first thing she notices when she wakes up. He is _very_ hard, and his hands are now beginning to become insistent, as they were already so many times last night, tilting her hips so that they are perfectly aligned for him to sink in.

He doesn’t, yet.

His mouth is doing something wonderful and probably illegal to her nape, and his hands slide down so that he can angle himself and move back and forth between her legs, and she doesn’t need to pay attention to the wet sounds to know that he really made a mess of her last night, not to mention that…

”I’m—a little—” she feels herself flush, “—sore.”

His hand halts, and his fingers tighten on her hip for a fraction of a second, biting and out of control.

Then he lets go.

“Of course. Of course, I—” He presses slow kisses into the base of her neck and then turns her to stare into her face. “Rey.” He licks her lips, and it’s oddly sweet. “Rey,” he says again, a little nonsensically, and they power she holds over this man, it’s heady.

She decides to do it impulsively and forbids herself from thinking about it too much. She lifts herself until she straddles him—he is so _solid_ —and then avoids his eyes as she works her way down, trying not to get to caught up in the expanse of him.

“Rey,” he tells her a third time, and there’s an edge in his tone.

She doesn’t answer him.

She has no idea what she’s doing—although, she has seen the holos and heard the jokes and has enough common sense that she can at least figure out what to do. She licks, experimentally. Starts from the base, where his sac is drawn up against his body, and then works her way to the tip. There is a slit, and a drop of something white, and she flattens her tongue against it. She doesn’t miss the way Ben’s eyes reverse in his skull, or that his hips buck up, or how he lifts his hand to her head and then moves it away immediately, as if not trusting himself to touch her.

“Stop,” he says, a little chocked, and for a moment—damn, Rey must be kriffing terrible at this. Then she lifts her eyes and actually takes a good look as him and realizes it—maybe _she_ is not problem.

Not at all.

“Stop thinking. It’s fine,” she tells him, and bends over him again, opening he mouth and letting the head of his cock rest against the cup of her tongue. Here, his smell is _incredible_. It reminds her of the forest, of the first time she met winter, of his blood dripping in the snow, and all she can do is lick him softly, and then open her lips, sucking past the head and sliding as far down as she can.

He moans.

On the first stroke, his hands clench on the metal headboard behind him.

On the second, they warp it into a curve as his throat constricts around the pleasure.

On the third, he finally does it—he moves his fingers to the back of her head, combs them though her hair and leaves them there, and really, she can understand why he needs the pretense of control.

Whatever it is that connects the two of them thrums between their minds, on fire.

On the fourth stroke, Ben’s nape hits what’s left of the headboard with a sound that sounds too desperate to be coming out of his mouth, and the furniture that is not bolted to the bulkhead starts shaking and shifting and lifting from the floor, the Force a whirlwind inside the room, stroking Rey’s skin and licking up her spine.

He lasts less than five strokes. The feedback through the bond is so strong that the pleasure hits her, too, warm and liquid within her belly. It’s probably only a fraction of what he’s feeling but it’s _crippling_.

She swallows, and swallows, but some— _a lot_ —ends up on her lips, and it seeps though the bond that the sight of her licking his come off her mouth is as close to peace as he’s ever felt.

 _I would kill for you_ , he thinks at her, inside her, and this is the result of what they just did, the culmination of all of their history together. _I would destroy the entire galaxy for this._

Rey nibbles on soft the crease between his abdomen and his thigh, and hopes that it will not come to that.

 

…

 

”When do you have to go back?” she finally asks one morning, finding him next to the viewport with his usual sulking expression. He does that a lot, standing there silent and brooding, ostensibly to look at the galaxy over which he supposedly rules.

Over which he seems to have very little interesting in ruling, of late.

He angles his head to look at her. “Are you coming back with me?”

She smiles at him.“To the Rebellion, you mean?”

He looks at her with that annoyed face he sometimes makes—mostly at her.

Only at her.

“Well. Then, no,“ she tells him.

“Well.” He reaches for her and pulls her in. His lips descend to press against her forehead. “Then, never.“

She studies him for long moments, and then something inside her unknots.

She nods, and sinks deeper inside him, and makes her decision.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and sorry for taking so long to upload, I actually spent so much time reading Reylo fic instead of writing in the past few days! I love this ship and this fandom so much! Anywhoo, [this is my main tumblr](https://what-if-im-a-mermaid.tumblr.com) and [this is my beloved Reylo tumblr](https://ever-so-reylo.tumblr.com/) and feel free to send Reylo prompts or ideas for fics if you have any (if you've already sent me one I promise I'm working on it!)


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